


We Could Greet The Dawn

by saltfics



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Hopeful Ending, I forgot how to tag, Light Angst, Mentioned Golden Deer Students (Fire Emblem), Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Zine, basically a take on their paired ending, i love it, yall have a tag for claude's wyvern?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltfics/pseuds/saltfics
Summary: Claude appeared out of the sky, his face flushed with exhilaration, his hair a windswept mess. He searched the ground below him, a concentrated frown between his brows, before his gaze met with hers.“Byleth!” he called, mirroring her smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting!”I promise I’ll be back, he had said. Of course, he would try to make the most dramatic entrance possible.--After Claude returns to defend Fodlan, he and Byleth take a moment to consider their decision to stay apart and look towards the future that awaits them.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43
Collections: Claudeleth Zine





	We Could Greet The Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Wow, I haven't been in this fandom since... *checks notes* December?? Anyhoo, I wrote this piece for the Claudeleth zine back in the spring and I finally get to post it.
> 
> Hope you like it!

Byleth had read tales over the past few years, given to her by students eager to share their favourite things, of knights and princesses and thrones, damsels-in-distress and valiant heroes. She enjoyed the action, the fights, the stubborn determination in those tales, but she had never quite understood the romantic aspect of a rescue. During the war, the rescues they had had to do had been brutal and desperate and not at all like the rose-colored, bright scenes of a dream these books had described them to be.

And yet, that day alone, Byleth could appreciate the concept of a well-timed rescue.

The enemies had caught them still too frail, too unprepared. Byleth had run out of divine pulses too fast, and when that sword tore against her side, she knew she couldn’t afford to undo it. She could only pray to a goddess she knew was long gone that her students—no, her people—would be okay without her.

Then she heard it. 

The cry.

What a lot of people never noticed was that the voice of a white wyvern had a subtle difference to its brown counterpart. It was a key higher, a little more singsong in its nature. Claude had taught her that in one of their late nights together, when they had visited his own beloved creature. And Sothis help her, that sounded exactly like her.

Byleth lifted her eyes to the sky, blinking back the mist gathering in them. The pain at her side and the hope swelling a beatless heart brought a lump to her throat she couldn’t swallow, but she smiled through it, a large, careless grin, that let her tears run free. For just a moment, her mind wandered to those stories, and though she would have never thought herself a damsel, she could have sworn she understood how they always fell in love.

Claude appeared out of the sky, his face flushed with exhilaration, his hair a windswept mess. He searched the ground below him, a concentrated frown between his brows, before his gaze met with hers.

“Byleth!” he called, mirroring her smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting!”

_ I promise I’ll be back _ , he had said. Of course, he would try to make the most dramatic entrance possible.

Of course, he would not stay away when she truly needed him.

She heard them then, too. The roar of a second army rushing towards battle behind her own. The invigorating screams of men and women. Violence and anger that sounded so much like hope.

Byleth spared a few sparks to patch up her wound as little as possible, and adjusted her bloody, sweaty grip on her sword, leaving a smudged, red handprint where she still held on tight.

A dozen pairs of eyes shifted between her and their new allies, glimmering with equal amounts of desperation and disbelief, uncertain in the face of this sudden salvation. And Byleth grinned, a wild, bloodstained smile that only grew larger as she stole one last glance at the shadow of a white wyvern up above. She cried out for one last charge, gathering all the dreams and expectations of her people within her, all the life and the fight, the selflessness of the people who had join them.

And they rushed. To their last stand. To a future that, win or lose, would be different than the one they left behind.

Their victory seemed impossible even for her. It seemed impossible that Byleth could still walk among her students, her people, her friends, that they had managed to prevail, when not too long ago things had seemed over for her. Her side still flared with pain every time she moved, and perhaps she should have gone to get that healed first, but she couldn’t rest until she made sure everyone was accounted for, safe.

Claude found her before she found him, calling her name across a crowd of exhausted yet smiling soldiers and citizens alike. It sparked the memory of him again, up on the wyvern, beaming down at her, and now that the urgency was gone, she acknowledged at last how much she had missed him, and let that feeling wash over her like cooling rain through burning veins. It carried her forward to meet him halfway.

She all but tackled him into a hug, ignoring the flare on her side. Claude chuckled a soft, breathless laugh, echoing with relief and fading adrenaline. His scent still lingered behind the grime and blood of war; Byleth pressed her face to the side of his neck, taking him in.

“It’s so good to see you,” he whispered, quiet enough only for her to hear. “I thought… I was scared I’d be too late.”

Byleth shook her head. “You were just in time.” A few moments earlier would have done wonders for the pain at her side, but she couldn’t say that to him, even if it was now burning incessantly from the stress of the hug. Her expression must have twisted into something revealing, however, because Claude frowned, eyeing her up and down, until his gaze settled on the wound, widening.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s fine—just a scratch,” she lied. She took a step forward to reach for him again, and the pain erupted, doubling her over, one hand flying to her side. It came away bloody.

“Byleth!” Claude exclaimed, taking her arms in his own, keeping her on her feet. “Can we get some help here?” he yelled around them, eyes frantic. “Someone?  _ Marianne _ ?”

“Claude—”

“Why didn’t you  _ say _ anything?”

The healers rushed to them before she could reply. She watched as Claude walked away to let them work, a storm brewing in his eyes.

They let her go twenty minutes later with a fresh bandage around her waist and a buzz in the back of her mind from the healing magic. Byleth searched for him, stopping a couple of times to talk to a person in need, or praise one of the youngest soldiers for their bravery, but her mind was swimming. She drifted in the most peculiar of storms, trapped between the soft cloud of magic and her concern for him that was loud and demanding like thunder. 

She found him tending to the wyvern. His loyal companion sensed his foul mood and nudged his head with her own, her low growling like the purr of a cat.

Byleth slowed to a stop right at his side, watching him with a gentle curiosity. “You didn’t have to leave.”

He patted the wyvern’s head once more for good measure, before turning to face her. “But I did.” His brows were tugged downward, his lips pressed into a sad line. His eyes roamed over her once more, catching on her new bandage for a moment longer. “I should have been here sooner.”

Byleth reached out to touch his cheek, feeling the tickle of his beard against her palm. Claude cupped her hand with his, tucking her close. “You were here just in time,” she repeated.

“This time?”

“You’re not usually such a defeatist,” Byleth frowned.

“Ha, well. Maybe because all other times I was fighting by your side.” 

“What about the years I was gone? You weren’t this pessimistic then.”

He scoffed. “Is that what I told you?” The harsh expression withered as he kept his eyes on her, fading away with a sigh. “I believed you would come back. Because—because it’s  _ you _ , Byleth. Master of the impossible, illogical in every way, so much so that you’d baffle even me.”

Byleth’s eyes softened, her thumbs brushing along his cheekbones before her hands fell to the side, Claude’s following on top.

“But I also had to believe it. Because the thought that you were gone… before I…”

“Before you could solve the mystery?” she teased, making him huff.

“That, too. It was more than that, though.” Claude took a step towards her, pressing their bodies together, uncaring of who saw. He placed one arm around her, his hand coming to rest on her back, perfectly positioned to pull her closer, and tuck her head under his chin. “Yes, you’re a mystery I wanted to solve. I still do. I’d spend an entire lifetime trying to put your pieces into place, but I’d keep finding more.” He sighed again. “I trust you more than anyone to put this place back together, but I hate this.”

Byleth pulled back, then took another step further, taking one of his hands in hers. “Walk with me.”

The warm buzz of healing had almost faded by then, and the clarity washed over her in waves, each one bringing a fresh throb of pain through her body; the healers were far too needed for her to demand a full recovery. But she schooled her expression into that careful neutrality that had once been her natural state, refusing to let Claude know how much it still hurt.

With the sun now so low in the sky, the breeze that fluttered around her clothes bit harsher than before, ruffling her hair and stinging her cheeks into a soft red. If she closed her eyes, she could almost ignore the scent of blood still lingering in the air, or the soreness of her limbs, and dream herself into the fields outside the monastery, her favorite house leader, her ally, her friend for company as they searched for ingredients and supplies. As she stopped him from gathering  _ that _ dangerous plant for another one of his… experiments. 

The sound of the dried grass crunching underneath her boots brought to mind afternoons spent lying under the sun, talking about theories or strategies or what fish was in season at the pond, and nights dressed in brilliant white moonlight, sharing secrets that were never meant to be heard.

Byleth smiled to herself. “I missed you,” she admitted, withdrawing from memories long past. Sometimes it was hard to remember how far they’ve gone from where they had started. Or how much it had cost them to get there. “I never realized how dependent I had become of your presence next to me.”

Claude grinned back but a sadness got tangled in his expression, scrunching up his brows. “Come on, Teach,” he teased, laughing when Byleth glared at him for the nickname. “You never really needed me.”

“I resent that. Who else would have possibly come up with the idea to commission Imperial Army outfits for an infiltration?”

The humour spread more naturally on his face now, a mischievous triumph taking years off of his features. “It was one of my finest moments, I agree.” He paused for a moment, before shaking his head, amused. “You still catch me off guard when you joke, you know.”

Byleth took a step closer to his side, their shoulders pressing together as they walked.

“I know what you mean, though,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if it was always meant to be this hard, or it’s your absence that strikes so hard and makes it so unbearable. I never thought I took you for granted, especially not after you disappeared, but I don’t think I ever realized how great it was not to have to do this alone.”

Something hard cracked under her feet. Byleth bent down to investigate and found a wayward arrow, snapped in two under the sole of her boot. Devoid of markings as it was, she couldn’t tell which army it had belonged to, or how it could have ever gotten this far. She let the tips of fingers brush against the worn fletching. “You don’t regret it, do you?” she asked, her back turned away from him. “Leaving?”

“No.” And contrary to what anyone would have expected, Byleth smiled at how fast he replied. “It sucks sometimes, but I still have to work towards my goal. Besides, I…”

Byleth shifted to look at him, still crouching on the ground. Claude’s gaze wandered somewhere far away, behind them, where the people were still helping each other in the aftermath of the battle. Although a line marred the space between his eyebrows, the corners of his lips were raised ever so slightly with a soft mirth she felt tugging around her own heart. “You love them. All of them. Your home. Both of your homes. Right?”

Claude extended a hand to her and lifted her to her feet. “You get it, don’t you?”

Byleth hummed. “Not the same way you do. But I promised you I’d help you achieve your ambition. And if distance is what you need from me, if you need me to hold down the fort here, then that’s what we’ll do.” 

“I love you.” 

His lips found hers, cashmere soft but hungry to the touch. Sweat and blood lingered in the taste of him, and she wondered, marveled at the idea of a day where the struggle wouldn’t mark their softest of moments. 

“I know I told you that the next time we see each other will be at the dawn of a new day. But we have to bear the darkness a little longer, my friend.”

Byleth pressed another chaste kiss to his lips, feeling the small smile spread under her touch. She pulled back, taking his hand and braiding their fingers together. 

Claude followed her as she led him back to the rest of the troops, the citizens, to all the people who had fought bravely that day.

“I’m not sure about that. Look around you,” Byleth said, and did so as well. She looked at the healers from both countries, patching up wounds and sharing vulneraries. She caught sight of a teenage-looking Almyran kid with a Fodlan soldier’s arm tossed around his shoulder, helping him limp forward. She looked at Cyril, who returned her gaze and smiled, and at Seteth sharing supplies with one of Claude’s soldiers to tend to an exhausted pegasus. “Look at them helping each other. We’re far from done, I know. But it’ll be a new day tomorrow. The people of Fodlan will remember the day Almyra saved our lives. The people of Almyra will know how far we can go if we do it together.”

Claude smiled as he watched, a real smile, with the most benevolent mischief painted across his features. Success and joy and a tentative satisfaction. He tore his eyes away from the sight just to look at her and she returned his grin, content in the knowledge of her truth she spoke.

The sun was but a thin line on the horizon by then, and as the night cloaked the sky they shared, they didn’t mind braving the darkest hours. The morning light would bring forth a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I hope you enjoyed this little piece! Please let me know what you thought before you leave!
> 
> Fun fact: I actually have not reread this piece before posting it, simply because trying to edit my work from months ago that's _already printed_ would be a total nightmare. So between you and me I barely have an idea of what went down in this one shot XD
> 
> You can always find me on tumblr @ saltfics c:


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